


Harlequin Letters

by leosaysgrrrr, LePetitChouNerd



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Attempt at Humor, But bad porn, Characters Reading Fanfiction, Humor, In-Universe RPF, Multi, Mystery, Other, Porn, Sexual Humor, There's fanfiction in my fanfiction, Too many euphemisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 07:26:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11709660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leosaysgrrrr/pseuds/leosaysgrrrr, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LePetitChouNerd/pseuds/LePetitChouNerd
Summary: “The tall, darkly handsome man gave out a husky breath as he swaggered into the bar.  Black hair with a faded crop paired perfectly with copper skin.  He smuggled Victoria’s heart at first wink.  ‘Call me Reyes’, he said.  Even his accent was magic.”Someone in Kadara Port is writing erotic fantasy stories about Reyes Vidal, and he and Puck are on a mission to find out who.





	Harlequin Letters

Well.   _ This  _ was new.

Puck was already in the lounge waiting for him when Reyes made his way into Tartarus, which wasn't in itself unusual.  She was a strange sort of lazy that actually shunned procrastination; the sooner they started a job, the sooner she could be done with it.  She’d also figured out by now that beating him to the punch annoyed him more than keeping him waiting, and Puck wouldn't be Puck if she wasn't both damn good at what she did and a royal pain in his ass.

The unusual part was that she was  _ laughing _ .

Again, not an entirely unusual, or even infrequent occurrence.  His helmeted henchman was far from humorless, and more often than not even he couldn't part company with her without having at least chuckled a little, however involuntarily, at some ridiculous comment of hers.  Her laugh itself, however, never rose above a giggle or a snicker, and the way the modulators in her helmet weighed down the light-hearted tones was never short of ominous.

“Would you look at that,” he remarked quietly, leaning in the doorframe with the sort of smirk that, had she bothered looking up from the datapad resting on her thigh to greet him, would have given her fair warning of what came next. 

“So, you can read after all.”

Right on cue and without taking her eyes off of her datapad, Puck reached behind her back, as if rummaging in pockets she didn’t have, and extended a pronated fist towards him.

“Got you something.”

Reyes knew better.  All that fist was likely to contain for him was a black eye and a fat lip.  When he didn’t immediately abandon his post by the door to accept her offering, she held it out again, more demanding this time, the way an indignant child offers a toy to a reluctant playmate.  He exaggerated an exasperated groan.  Against his better judgment, Reyes plodded his way towards the bench where she sat, and held a supine hand beneath hers.  

Puck, charming as only she could be, slowly rolled her fist over and raised her middle finger.

No surprise whatsoever.

“You shouldn't have.”

“Anything interesting?” he asked as he pushed an empty metal cup still clinging to a few drops of whiskey aside and took a seat next to her.  Still unwilling to move that mechanical green gaze from the screen, she merely tilted it sideways so he could see.

The sideways glance he gave his friend upon noting the title proved the best he could do to contain himself.  She couldn't possibly be serious.

“ _ Harlequin Letters _ , huh _? _ ” 

It was the sort of disreputable publication that, if it were a printed book, would have a classically virile man with sweeping long hair and a torn silk shirt blowing in the wind as he held his similarly scantily clad lady in his massive arms, staring deep into her eyes while his own burned with desire on the cover.  Someone, who understandably remained anonymous, collected short stories written by the denizens of Kadara Port and published them as a weekly extranet magazine, and not a soul in Heleus wanted to admit they were on that mailing list.  

Except, apparently, for Puck. 

Not that Reyes would ever think of judging anyone for...partaking.  Few aspects of life on Kadara could be considered enjoyable, and if some poor fools wanted to escape into a literary paradise to fill their heads with purple prose and questionably clever euphemisms for genitalia for a while instead of worrying whether they’d be able to eat that week and pay Sloane’s protection fee, well...more power to them.  The fact that Puck was so enthralled in such things jabbed at him in the most annoying of ways.  Part of him wanted to wonder why, what sordid reality she hid from him outside their dealings together that the glow of that screen with those risqué words helped her escape.  The rest of him remembered he was talking about  _ Puck _ ; in all likelihood, she giggled at trashy smut like that because she just fucking liked it.

“And to think, I’d thought better of you.”

“Pfft, who the fuck knows why,” she muttered.  Reyes cocked his head into a sideways nod, the corners of his mouth downturned in mocking agreement.  Puck caught the tail end of it as she finally tore her attention away from the datapad, and retaliated with a backhanded swat at his shoulder.  

“And how do  _ you _ know what it is anyway?”

_ Everyone  _ knew, and he knew she knew everyone knew.

“It has...a reputation.”

“Uh huh.”  She leaned forward and pointed an accusatory finger in his face.  “Don't act like you don't take a little swim in the cesspool yourself from time to time, Reyes Vidal.  We all do it.  We’re human, or whatever, and we have needs.  Nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Easy to say when you have no shame in the first place.”

A bit of a silly accusation towards someone who never showed her face and changed her voice, but with Puck, it fit.  There was too little shame in anything else she did for that to be the reason he'd only seen any sort of facial expression on her in his imagination.  

“Makes lots of things easy,” she threw back, her tone implying everything and nothing.  She sat the datapad off to the side while she stretched her arms out in front of her, fingers laced, then held them above her head while she shifted around into a more comfortable position.  

“Anyway, you should read this one,” she continued amidst an irreverent yawn while tapping at the device next to her.  “It's fuckin’ gold.”

“I'm almost afraid to ask.”

The smartass grin hiding behind her helmet leaked out through the modulators when she answered, so much so that he could almost see it plastered across her face.  Well, what he imagined to be her face, anyway.

“You're in it.”

He stopped with a deadpan yet noticeably guarded expression. It took as much as a slight raise of his brow and a tight lipped grin for Reyes to suppress his piqued curiosity.

“Am I now?”

Puck replied with a hard stare.  It wasn't that Reyes didn't believe her; it was an entirely believable scenario, that he was the center of someone’s darkest fantasies, and that whoever it was would immortalize it in writing.  However, Puck knew it was believable, and he knew her better than to just take her at her word.

“I said you are, didn't I?”

Better to make  _ absolutely  _ sure.

“You're shitting me.”

“I shit you not.”  

“Seriously?”

“Keep it up, Vidal.  You'll see how serious I am when I knock out all your fucking teeth.”

He returned her motionless stare with a grin that made sure to show off all his fucking teeth, and she groaned as if picking up the datapad from the bench next to her was as painful as what she was about to make him hear with his own two ears.

“The tall, darkly handsome man gave out a husky breath as he swaggered into the bar.  Black hair with a faded crop paired perfectly with copper skin.  He smuggled Victoria’s heart at first wink.  ‘Call me Reyes’, he said.  Even his accent was magic.” 

There wasn't much that could make Reyes Vidal blush, but at that moment he couldn't have been more fortunate that Kian chose red lights in his club.

“Sshhhh!  Let me see that!”

Puck briefly defended her datapad with a raised forearm, but relinquished it with a smug upward nod, then sat back and folded her hands behind her head to watch the show.  

It was titled  _ Lake of My Heart.   _ The titular main character was a tall, plucky, rosy-cheeked brunette with a dash of freckles across her nose and captivating bright blue eyes named Victoria Lake, and the whole scene was set in a bar by - how would he have ever guessed? - a lake.  His own appearance in the story began with an admittedly characteristic swig of whiskey straight from a bottle that he immediately  _ un _ characteristically smashed on the ground, unable to resist the urge to take Victoria into his arms.  As one might expect, it only went downhill from there.  His eyes raked back and forth over the words on the screen, swearing he'd had quite enough after each sentence but reading on anyway, the way one can't help but stare at a shipwreck.  

“There’s no way this is real.”

A thought came to him while scanning the fourth usage of the phrase ‘exploring her depths’, as Puck’s unnerving snickers rose a bit in pitch.  

“Did... _ you _ do this?”

Puck stared back at him with an offended tilt of her helmet, and pushed out a loud scoff.  

“First of all, that is such a disgusting and heinous accusation, and you should be ashamed.  Second, I couldn't make this shit up even if I wanted to.  Which I don’t.  Ever.”

Reyes studied her through narrowed eyes.  This was exactly the sort of thing she would do if she wanted to irritate or embarrass him, and if he were anyone else, it might have.  God knows it would’ve sent Sloane into a frenzy.  Then again, she obviously knew it would only amuse him, if not do wonders for his ego, and such goals were not within Puck’s repertoire.  No, it couldn’t have been her.

“This is...this is…”

“Amazing?”

“Amazingly  _ terrible! _  Just  _ listen _ .”  He cleared his throat and straightened his back, as if he were auditioning for Hamlet rather than reading, well... _ this:  _

“'Reyes's golden honey eyes burned onto her milky skin as he whispered, ‘Te quiero, mi amor,’ and ripped the silk of her blouse with the beastly strength of a god’.”  

Puck was all but cackling now, and while it was still a hardly pleasant sound, the novelty of her laughter fanned at a mischievous spark in his eye.  

“The characterization, it’s all wrong,” he continued.  “Where is this Reyes’s patience?  I’m a very patient man.  It’s always better to take your time with these things, undo them little by little.  Like a gentleman.  Don’t even get me  _ started _ on that tragic waste of whiskey.  And I would  _ never _ say something that cheesy.”

Puck gave him a little shove with her elbow.

“ _ Someone _ thinks you would.  Not to mention the whole ‘beastly strength of a god’ thing,” she said, poking at his belly.  “Don't know where they're getting  _ that  _ bullshit idea.”

Pain in the  _ ass _ . 

Reyes tightened his core, folding his arms to protect himself, and let his mouth hang open in feigned disbelief that she would actually say such a thing.

“Hey!  Maybe not godly, but I have plenty of beastly strength in my own way.”

“Yeah, well smell isn't everything.”

“ _ Ouch, _ ” he choked out through a chuckle.  “Hmm, who do I have to thank for this...incredibly flattering but  _ wildly _ inaccurate depiction of my... _ skills _ ?”

“You really think a smut rag out of Kadara would make people use their real names?”

“Well then…we’d better find out who this...” He paused to glance at the datapad once more, just long enough for his eyes to find the audacious author’s name and promptly roll towards the ceiling in despair, “‘Delilah Lefleur’ is.”

“We?  Aren’t you forgetting something?  You called me because we had a job.”

An easy one that would take him a few emails and about an hour or two of Puck’s time at most.  They could do it in their sleep by now.  This  _ Harlequin Letters _ business would prove far more interesting.  Not to mention he was now genuinely curious, and not the sort he would be able to ignore.

“It can wait.  We need to get to the bottom of this.”  He placed an assertive forefinger on the datapad screen, and the most deadpan look he could muster on his face.  It worked about as well as the little shake in Puck’s shoulders hid that she was almost uncontrollably giggling to herself.  “I have a  _ reputation _ to think about.”

She was probably grinning ear to ear underneath that stupid helmet.

“Then I know the perfect place to start.”

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: @chargenovasmash
> 
> Many thanks to my lovely LePetitChouNerd for her help and suggestions with this piece! It wouldn't have been possible without her. :)
> 
> And many thanks to you for reading! Make sure to leave feedback because you know that shit's like crack to us!


End file.
